


•^1 




ADDRESS 



BEFORE THE 



LITERARY SOCIETIES 



HAMILTON COLLEGE. 



l'.V HON. I'HILO GRID LEY 



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GiKJ^O 



U T 1 C A : 

R. VV. ROBERTS, PRINTER, 58 GENESEE STREET. 

1845. 



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AN 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



LITERARY SOCIETIES 



HAMILTON COLLEGE, 

JULY 22, 1845, 
CLINTON, N. Y. 

BY HON. PHILO GRIDLEY. 



UTICA : 
R. W. ROBERTS, PRINTER, 58 GENESEE STREET. 

1845. 



^ * 



CORRESPONDENCE 



Hamilton College, October 1, 1845. 
HON. PHILO GRIDLEY, 

Sir :— 

The undersigned, in behalf of the Union and Phcenix Societies 

of Hamilton College, tender you their thanks for your appropriate 

Address, delivered on the occasion of their last Anniversaries, and 

respectfully solicit a copy of the same, for publication. 

Yours with regard, 

D. H. OLMSTEAD, ^Corresponding Committee 

D. W. LANGFORD, S Of Union Society. 



Utica, October 6, 1845. 
GENTLEMEN :— 

I have received your letter of the first instant, requesting a 

copy of the Address delivered by me, before the Literary Societies of 

Hamilton College, for publication. Prepared as it was, in haste, and in 

the midst of a pressure of other duties, I am quite sensible of its many 

imperfections ; but with all its faults, it is at your service ; and as soon 

as my avocations will enable me to do so, I will furnish you the copy 

you desire. 

Your obedient Servant, 

P. GRIDLEY. 
Messrs. D. H. OLMSTEAD, > 

and > Committee, &c. 

D. W. LANGFORD, S 



ADDRESS 



Young Gentlemen, 

Members of the Union and Phosnix Societies: — 
In accepting the invitation of your Committee to 
address you upon this occasion, I overlooked the very 
inadequate preparation which a constant pressure of 
arduous duties would enable me to make ; in the strong 
desire which I felt, to stand once more, after the lapse of 
many years, in the midst of these well-remembered 
scenes ; and to call up, from the dusky shadows of the 
past, those early associations and those old memories, 
which are ever blended with by-gone visions of youthful 
happiness, and which the heart still cherishes, as among 
the most precious of its possessions. 

I remembered, also, that there were some points of 
common interest and sympathy between us. We have 
walked the halls of the same honored seat of learning — 
we have gazed, alike, "many a time and oft," from the 
summit of yonder classic hill upon that panorama of 
unrivaled beauty which nature has spread out beneath — 
we have been nursed in the lap of the same fair mother 
of arts — we have slaked our thirst at the same abundant 
fountain of instruction — and there, too, we have, alike, 
held high converse with the great spirits of the past, 
"who, though dead, yet speak to us," in their immortal 



works. — 'Recognizing these common ties of sympathy, 
and reflecting, that, standing, as a portion of your number 
now does, upon the very threshhold of active life, your 
hearts must be swelling with the same emotions which 
once agitated those who have gone before you — that your 
bosoms are animated with the same hopes ; trembling 
with the same apprehensions ; and nerved, I trust, with 
the same high purpose, to do your behests like men, in 
the great struggle of life : — remembering, I say, all this, 
I could not forego the privilege of an elder brother, 
communing with the younger ones of the same "Alma 
Mater," to take my place as a Mentor by your side, and 
to give you one word of counsel and encouragement, as 
you are stepping forth, in the buoyancy and inexperience 
of youth, upon the great theatre of active labor and duty. 
To accomplish this, in some good degree, I propose to 
occupy the brief space of time allotted to this exercise in 
a consideration of the subject of 

ENTHUSIASM 

IN THE PURSUIT OF INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL EXCELLENCE. 

I premise, however, that I do not employ this term in 
the sense attached to it by Locke and Taylor, by whom 
it is used as another name for fanaticism ; but I use 
it to express that entire concentration and intense devotion 
of all the intellectual powers to the accomplishment of a 
given object; — that divine impulse of the mind, so to 
speak, which enlarges and elevates and invigorates all its 
faculties, until, inspired with a new and living energy, it 
seems to lose its very identity with the dull and powerless 



being it was in its quiescent state. — I know that it 
has been held by some that this wonderful attribute 
of the mind is a quality peculiar to the fanciful and the 
imaginative : And while they admit that it constitutes 
the very inspiration of the Poet, 

" Whose eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ;" 

and whose 

"Imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown, 
And gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name :" 

They yet maintain that it is utterly incompatible with any 
severe or long continued process of thought. This, 
however, is by far too low an estimate of this wonder 
working power. Wherever the energies of the human 
mind have been most strenuously exerted ; wherever 
the most earnest and profound researches after truth 
have been conducted ; and wherever the most brilliant 
triumphs in the field of human knowledge have been 
achieved ; there, have been felt the presence and the 
power of this mighty agency. It crossed the Rubicon 
with Csesar — it climbed the Alps with Hannibal — it 
traversed the burning sands of Egypt with Napoleon — it 
explored the trackless ocean with Columbus — it ascended 
the very "highest heaven of invention" with the Bard 
of Avon — and, with an eagle's flight, it soared with 
Newton among the stars of heaven. 

It may be instructive to make a nearer approach ; and 
to examine, with a closer observation, the operation of 



8 



this soul-elevating impulse upon a mind whose powers 
are expanding under its influence. 

In yonder room, surrounded with books and implements 
of science, sits a student of nature, deeply intent on some 
absorbing subject of contemplation. It is the still hour of 
night, when the busy hum of industry, and the boisterous 
sounds of revelry, have alike died away, and nought of 
sound or sight exists to withdraw the attention, or to 
disturb the musings of the soul within. A single glance 
of the observer, revealing the deeply furrowed lines, the 
broad brow, the fixed yet eager look, and the face radiant 
with intellectual light ; indicates one, whose mind has 
escaped, for the time, from its earthly bonds, and is 
expatiating in the very heaven of thought. What to him 
are now the plots of ambition, or the schemes of avarice ? 
He is utterly indifferent whether this aspiring candidate 
for popular favor is crowned with success, or that one, 
prostrated in defeat — whether this bold speculation 
showers down the riches of Midas upon its authors, or 
that one plunges its projectors in hopeless ruin. His 
thoughts are far away — his soul has taken its flight into 
the distant provinces of creation ; and there he is taking 
the guage and measurement of yonder sun ; or, he is 
computing the distance of Sirius ; or, he is calculating the 
velocity, and predicting the precise period of the return of 
some eccentric orb, which, a century since, took its leave 
of our planet, and passed beyond the reach of telescopic 
vision ; or, he is computing the ages, which, in the cycles 
of eternal years, shall pass away, ere yon dim nebular 
spot, just visible in the depths of space, shall be moulded 



into an orb of beauty, and take its place in some new-born 
constellation, to light up other skies in some distant 
portions of the universe. — These are the lofty subjects of 
his contemplation ; and by the side of the glories which 
cluster around his intellectual vision, all those objects 
that so powerfully engage the attention of men, fade away 
into insignificance. It may be, that the great philosopher 
gives no outward evidence of the deep enthusiasm which 
pervades every faculty of his mind : but think you that 
the feeling is less intense, because its emotions are 
suppressed ? In this deep abstraction of thought, which 
excludes the outward world, triumphs over the weakness 
of the body and the agony of pain, suspends the functions 
of the senses, and almost translates the ethereal spirit 
from its tenement of clay ; shall we deny the existence of 
this soul-elevating impulse, because its inspiration lies too 
deep for observation ? 

Take another illustration.— A great orator is called to 
discuss before his countrymen some momentous question 
of public policy. Upon the issue of this question may 
depend the destiny of his country for weal or woe ; and 
the weight of the responsibility that rests upon him has 
chilled, and paralyzed his faculties. The spectator sees 
the struggle that is passing within painted in striking 
lineaments upon his face. His thoughts are scattered and 
disjointed ; and his words fall feeble and powerless from 
his lips. His great mind is reeling and staggering under 
the pressure. As he proceeds, however, it becomes 
apparent that the great ocean of thought is becoming 
agitated in its inmost depths, and the dormant powers of 



10 



the orator are beginning to arouse themselves to their 
accustomed action. The will, which seemed, for the 
time, to have partaken of the universal paralysis, gradually 
regains its wonted control of the other faculties, and at 
length assumes its undisputed sovereignty : and anon, the 
understanding, the memory, the fancy, and the passions, 
are summoned up to do service at the bidding of the great 
master-spirit. — And now witness the mighty change ! 
" Thoughts that breathe and words that burn " rush 
unbidden for utterance — arguments the most profound and 
convincing ; imagery the most gorgeous and magnificent ; 
wit the most keen and polished ; invective the most 
terrible and desolating ; by turns seize upon, and take 
captive the mind of the hearer. A chain of irresistible 
argument has conducted every understanding to the 
conclusions sought by the speaker, while a torrent of 
vehement and impassioned eloquence has set all hearts 
on fire for action. — And the great orator stands forth, the 
noblest exhibition of that intellectual power, which not 
only subjects the material creation to its dominion, but 
rules with despotic sway the empire of mind itself. 

Such we may conceive to be a feeble portrait of 
that great modern orator, of whom, one of his most 
distinguished rivals is reported to have said, after 
listening to one of his magnificent perorations ; that 
he went away " lost in amazement, at the compass, 
till then unknown to him, of human eloquence ;" or, it 
may furnish an illustration of the power of the great 
prince of ancient oratory himself; who, in the greatest of 
his orations which have come down to us, (I allude to 



11 



that upon the Crown,) in the language of a distinguished 
critic, after having put forth his masterly self-vindication, 
poured an overwhelming torrent of accusation upon the 
head of his shrinking adversary, and then broke away 
into a long-continued strain of more than mortal eloquence 
which left every competitor, ancient or modern, utterly 
out of sight. 

These, however, are illustrations of this wonder 
working power in its very boldest relief, and in its most 
striking aspects. Few can aspire to be a Newton or 
LaPlace, a Demosthenes or a Pitt. Nevertheless, if you 
would reach any high degree of intellectual excellence, 
you must employ the same means which they employed, 
and travel the same beaten path which they have trodden 
before you. And if this intellectual enthusiasm was 
necessary to their gigantic efforts, the same energetic 
impulse must ensure your triumphs in less arduous 
enterprises. It, therefore, becomes an important inquiry, 
how this high attribute of the mind is to be acquired. 

In a great degree, I doubt not, it is, like all other 
intellectual endowments, the gift of God, and is made 
by him to depend upon a happy physical organization. 
For, while I disclaim all allegiance to the modern system 
of materialism, called by its advocates, the science of 
Phrenology, and withhold my assent from its startling 
principles and more startling conclusions, simply because 
they are not proven ; we are yet compelled to admit, as 
an undeniable fact, that in this mysterious union between 
mind and matter ; between the soul, destined to an 
immortal life, and its earthly tabernacle, which is doomed 



12 



to perish ; the manifestations of thought are in a high 
degree dependent on the organization of the body. Hoiv 
it is so, or why it is so, we can not tell ; but that it is so, is 
too clear to admit of a doubt. The temperament, the 
nervous system, and the brain especially, exercise an 
inexplicable, but yet an undeniable agency in the 
production of thought. And as these elements differ 
in different individuals, so do the mental exhibitions which 
depend upon them. It is impossible to maintain that 
Pascal and Margaret Davidson were not indebted for the 
early development of their almost seraphic powers, to a 
finer material organism than falls to the lot of ordinary 
mortals. 

But though it must be conceded that Providence, in 
the structure of our bodies, may have caused this power 
to exist in greater excellence in some individuals than in 
others, as it hath made one star to differ from another star 
in glory, it is yet a cheering and consoling truth, that it is 
capable, in all, of an indefinite degree of improvement by 

CULTIVATION. 

This is a law of our nature, both physical and 
intellectual. Training and exercise have performed 
wonders upon the mere physical powers of man. Under 
the plastic hand of art, the greatest natural defects have 
been overcome. The athlete, the boxer, the racer, the 
mountebank, and the gladiator, are all familiar instances 
of what may be done by skill and persevering effort in 
increasing the strength, agilny, and dexterity of the 
human frame. A somewhat higher and more striking 
instance of the effect of persevering practice has been 



13 



given in the player upon the violin or piano, where the 
surprising activity of the fingers is only equaled by the 
rapidity of thought and will which precede every 
contraction of the muscles. Another instance quite as 
striking, and which I do not remember to have seen 
noticed, is furnished in the facility with which an 
experienced bank clerk will count, examine, and lay off a 
pile of bank notes. When it is remembered that in the 
inspection of each particular bill, the operator has to 
determine its denomination, the bank that issued it, and to 
mark the least possible variation between the engraving 
and signature of the note, and the ideal prototype in his 
mind ; it is wonderful that all this can be done, as it 
daily is, by the practiced clerk, with the rapidity of 
thought itself. A Locke or a Bacon would be as 
powerless to achieve this feat as the most illiterate boor. 
The same law applies, in a still more wonderful degree, 
to the higher faculties of the mind. And it is only 
necessary to compare the intellect of Newton, such as we 
know it to have been, with the same intellect if he had 
been born and bred a savage, to verify this position. 

It is by cultivation, therefore, that you are to improve 
this faculty of the mind as well as every other. Some one 
may ask, How can I cultivate an impulse which I do not 
feel? I can solve a problem, which has been assigned 
me as a duty, but I regard it as a task, and feel no 
pleasure in the exercise. — I answer, you must solve 
problems, till the exercise becomes a pleasure ; which 
it infallibly will, if you repeat the experiment, as often 
and in the spirit that you should do. There is no mental 



14 



exercise which habit will not render comparatively easy ; 
and when severe intellectual labor is crowned with 
success, it becomes a positive enjoyment ; and this 
enjoyment has been known to be so intense as to make 
the subjects of it forget the proprieties of time and place 
in the exuberance of their joy. — The Syracusan Sage 
is said to have disturbed the town by shouting his 
"Eureka;" and Sir Humphrey Davy leaped about his 
room in unrestrained exultation, as his eye descried 
the glittering metallic drop, which was to form an era 
in chemical science, and to inscribe his name on the 
imperishable records of fame. 

In some, and, perhaps, in most minds, there is a 
reluctance to commence an intellectual effort. — Such, 
we are informed was the case with the great Dr. Johnson. 
Though possessed of gigantic powers, he needed the 
stimulus of necessity to call them forth ; and it was 
fortunate for him, and still more fortunate for posterity, 
that this stimulus was frequently applied. Perhaps the 
most striking effort of his genius (I allude to his Rasselas) 
was written during the evenings of a single week, to 
defray the expenses of his mother's funeral. It would be 
curious and instructive to notice the operations of his 
mind in the composition of this immortal work. — It is 
easy to imagine the sorrow and distaste with which he 
assumed the pen, and sat down to the ungrateful task. 
He may have struggled through a few of the first 
sentences with reluctance and difficulty. But as his 
mind applied itself to the subject it would kindle and 
glow with the exercise, until it would be filled with joy 



15 



and exultation in its own beautiful and brilliant creations. 
The apathy of indolence, and the sorrow of bereavement, 
would give place to an intense excitement, and a glowing 
enthusiasm ; an enthusiasm which bestows the rewards, 
as assuredly as it exalts the powers, of genius. Thus was 
the great Johnson rewarded for his mental toil, — and 
thus shall every honest and high souled aspirant after 
moral and intellectual excellence be ultimately rewarded, 
humble though he be, in comparison with his great 
exemplar. 

One of the most remarkable instances of that 
enthusiastic resolution, which is born of necessity and 
conquers difficulties, is exemplified in the life of Nelson 
the blind teacher, in New York, as it is given in a most 
interesting biography of one who was his pupil. — " Total 
blindness, after a long and gradual advance, came upon 
him about his twentieth year, when terminating his 
College course. It found him poor, and left him, to all 
appearance, penniless and wretched, with two sisters to 
maintain, — without money, without friends, without 
a profession, and without sight. Under such an 
accumulation of griefs most minds would have sunk ; 
but with him it was otherwise. At all times proud 
and resolute, his spirit rose at once into what might be 
called the fierceness of independence; — he resolved 
within himself to be indebted for support to no hand 
but his own. His classical education, which from his 
feeble vision, had been necessarily imperfect, he now 
determined to complete, and immediately entered upon 
the apparently hopeless task. With a view to fit himself 



16 



for a teacher of youth, he instructed his sisters in the 
pronunciation of Greek and Latin, and employed one 
or the other constantly in reading aloud to him the 
classics usually taught in the schools. A naturally 
faithful memory, spurred on by such strong excitement, 
performed its oft repeated miracles ■; and in a space of 
time incredibly short, he became master of their contents, 
even to the minutest points of critical reading.— At this 
period a gentleman who incidentally became acquainted 
with his history, in a feeling somewhere between pity 
and confidence, placed his two sons under his charge, 
with a view to enable him to try the experiment. A 
few months' trial was sufficient ; he then fearlessly 
appeared before the public, and at once challenged a 
comparison with the best established classical schools 
in the city. — The novelty and boldness of the attempt 
attracted general attention ; the lofty confidence he 
displayed in himself, excited respect ; and soon his 
untiring assiduity, his real knowledge, and a burning- 
zeal, which, knowing no bounds in his devotion to his 
scholars, awakened somewhat of a corresponding spirit in 
their minds y and completed the conquest.-— His reputation 
spread daily ; scholars flocked to him in crowds ; 
competition sunk before him ; and in the course of a 
very few years he found himself in the enjoyment of 
an income superior to that of any College patronage in 
the United States ; with to him the infinitely higher 
gratification of having risen above the pity of the world, 
and fought his own blind way to independence." 



17 



This is, indeed, a most remarkable instance of the 
triumph of an enthusiastic and energetic spirit over 
difficulties, before which ordinary minds would have 
sunk in hopeless apathy. 

It is this lofty and indomitable purpose to excel, 
connected with an opportunity and scope for the exercise 
of high intellectual powers, which has made the Caesars 
and the Bonapartes, the Homers and the Miltons of the 
world. And most beautifully has Gray expressed this 
truth, and mourned over the want of opportunity that 
prevented the growth and expansion of glorious qualities 
in many a humble son of genius, in the following stan2as 
of his inimitable Elegy : 

" Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; 
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, 
Or Waked to extacy the living lyre. 

"But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, 

Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll? 
Chill penury repressed their noble rage 

And froze the genial current of the soul. 

"Some village Hampden that, with dauntless breast, 
The little tyrant of the fields withstood ; 
Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest; 

Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood." 

Philosophy never spoke more truthfully than poetry 
does here. Multitudes there are who pass through life 
in obscurity, simply for the want of opportunity or 
necessity to call forth their dormant powers. Washington, 
with his world-wide fame, might have died "unhonored 



18 



and unsung," had not our revolutionary struggle called 
forth his great qualities, and hung his name up on high 
for the gaze and admiration of the world. 

It will be perceived that I have hitherto treated this 
subject, chiefly as a means of increasing the power and 
efficiency of the intellectual faculties. But 
whether an increase of intellectual power will in any 
given case be a blessing or a curse, wilL depend on the 
uses to be made of it. It may become a mighty agent 
for good, or a powerful instrument of evil, according to 
the disposition and will of its possessor. Attilla gloried 
in the appellation of the Scourge of God, and boasted 
that the ground on which his horse's hoofs had once 
trodden was blasted with eternal desolation. Voltaire 
was the Attilla of the moral world ; — and wherever 
the breath of his pestiferous principles has been felt, 
it has extinguished every principle of human virtue 
and blasted every flower of human happiness. The 
pestilence not only spread its baneful influence over 
the plains of his own beautiful France, but has crossed 
the ocean, and become, among us, the prolific parent of 
error and vice and crime, in a thousand multiform 
shapes. Similar results have ever followed the 
prostitution of high intellectual powers to the cause of 
vice ; and the enemy of virtue is dangerous to human 
happiness in proportion to the talents with which he is 
endowed, and the energy with which he has been 
trained to exert them. — Let us turn, however, from 
the mournful spectacle of talents not merely wasted 
but perverted, to the sublime exhibiton of great qualities 



19 



devoted to the cause of justice and humanity. It is 
impossible here, even to catalogue the names of the 
great apostles of benevolence, who have, in every age, 
illustrated the virtues of human sympathy ; and, having 
fulfilled the mission of Him who sent them, have passed 
away to their rewards above. It is pleasant to turn 
away from the bloody page which records the frauds 
and crimes, the robberies and murders, which man has, 
in every age, committed against his fellow, to the 
contemplation of the characters of a Socrates and a 
Cicero, a Locke and a Milton, a Howard and a Clarkson, 
a Washington and a Franklin ; names w r hich will never 
die, but which will live on through all time, growing 
brighter and more glorious, while a sentiment of justice 
is felt, or a cord of sympathetic feeling vibrates in the 
human heart. 

And now, my young Friends, let me exhort you to 
go and do likewise ; and to follow, though at a humble 
distance, in the footsteps of these great exemplars. I do 
not mean that you are to engage in a crusade of 
benevolence ; or to devote your time, as Howard did, 
to a perpetual mission of charity. I know that 
circumstances will not allow you to do this, and rarely 
does duty demand it. I doubt not that the most of you 
will select some profession or calling which you will 
pursue as a means of providing for yourselves and your 
households ; but I do mean, that in the business or calling 
which you may select, you adopt the principles and 
exert your influence, as God may give you occasion and 
opportunity, on the side of justice and moral virtue. In 



20 



this country more than in any other, not only the tone of 
social life, but the character of our civil institutions, is 
dependent in no small degree upon the breath of public 
opinion. Your views spoken, and acted out, form part 
and parcel of that public opinion ; and will be more or 
less important as your position may give you an influence 
over the opinions and conduct of others. But whatever 
may be your profession or relations in life, there is a wide 
field spread out before you, in which you may, directly 
and indirectly, put forth a powerful influence in behalf of 
erring and suffering humanity. 

Within a few years past, a stream of light has been 
shed down upon the social and political condition of 
man, and many of the dogmas of past ages, utterly 
incompatible with the principles of civil and religious 
liberty, are giving way before the steady light of reason, 
and the urgent claims of an expansive benevolence. 

We are but just emerging from that night of darkness, 
when religious intolerance was the vice of the whole 
Christian world, and when, throughout the largest 
portion of Christendom, the duty was enjoined of 
destroying the body for the good of the soul. We are 
apt to congratulate ourselyes with the idea, that this sin 
against the religion of peace lies exclusively at the door 
of Catholic Rome. And true it is, that to her alone 
belongs the exclusive claim to the bloody horrors of the 
inquisition, and to that system of military execution and 
massacre which drenched the fields of France and Spain 
and the Netherlands, with their most precious blood. 
Indeed, her's was a guilt of so deep a dye, that the sins 



21 



of Protestant England and America, in comparison, seem 
almost bleached to the whiteness of innocence.— But 
before we claim for Protestantism an entire exemption 
from the intolerance of religious persecution, we should 
call to mind the execution of Servetus, and the murder of 
Sharpe ; and we should remember that, although the fires 
of Smithfield had ceased to blaze, with the death of the 
bloody Mary ; yet, in the reign of Protestant Elizabeth, 
one hundred and ninety-nine persons suffered death, 
directly or indirectly on account of their religious faith. 
And especially does it behoove us to remember that the 
spray of the sea was scarcely dry upon the garments of 
our Pilgrim Fathers, before the Baptists and the Quakers 
learned that the asylum of the oppressed, the chosen 
resting place of religious liberty, was not exempt from 
the spirit of religious persecution. 

This monstrous violation of human rights, and gross 
perversion of the spirit of all true religion, were the 
offspring of the moral darkness which pervaded the minds 
and consciences of men, and belonged rather to the age, 
than to the character, of individuals, or of creeds. This is 
especially true of the fathers of New England. For 
history has no record of a nobler race of men, more 
virtuous and self-sacrificing, more enlightened or farther 
advanced, for the age in which they lived, in the science 
of civil and religious liberty, than that heroic band of 
Pilgrims, who, amidst the rigors of a northern winter, 
surrounded by savage foes, and in the face of famine, 
pestilence, and death, colonized New England, and laid 
the foundations of an empire. — God grant that their 



22 



descendants may ever emulate their high principle, and 
never dishonor their ancestry by a departure from an 
example of unselfish patriotism, and uncompromising 
virtue. Hence it is, I say, that impartial Justice herself 
will charge the enormities of which I have spoken, in a 
great degree, upon the moral darkness of the age in which 
they were committed ; and hence it is, too, that to 
dissipate the lingering shadows of that darkness, is 
needed the active influence of all who regard with 
favor the advancement and progress of the human race. 
Again : We live in a land, the freest of any 
upon which the sun shines ; and we have, moreover, 
declared, in a national manifesto, that " all men are 
created free and equal." Yet we behold the spectre of 
Slavery spreading his sable wings over the fairest portion 
of our wide domain. A multitude of our fellow-citizens, 
shocked at this monstrous outrage upon human rights, 
have banded themselves together for the extirpation of 
this great social and political evil ; and, to accomplish 
this object, have adopted principles in violation of the 
Constitution and fatal to the Union. While we can not 
approve of their revolutionary measures, and believe them 
hostile to the best interests of the slave himself; we, yet, 
in common with all the friends of the human race, deeply 
sympathize with them in their abhorrence of slavery, 
and respond with our whole hearts to the sentiment of 
Jefferson, when he said, with reference to this enormous 
national crime ; "I tremble for my country, when I 
remember that God is just." Human Charity herself is 
shocked to see the most distinguished statesman of the 



23 



South, in defiance of the common sentiment of the 
whole civilized world, boldly put to hazard his reputation 
with posterity, by an audacious defence of a system 
which declares the contract of marriage a nudum pactum ; 
which abrogates the relation of parent and child ; which 
tears the helpless infant from the arms of its mother, and 
sells it to a distant and hopeless bondage ; which makes 
it felony to teach a slave to read the Gospel of his Savior : 
a system, in fine, which is bathed in the tears, and 
baptized in the blood of its victims. 

Again : Good men and philanthropists believe that 
the day is approaching when war will come to be 
regarded as a remnant of barbarism ; and when national 
controversies will be settled by the arbitration of some 
friendly power, or decided before some august tribunal, 
established by the united consent of civilized and 
Christian nations. This is a consummation most 
devoutly to be wished, by every friend of the human 
race. In the present and past condition of the world, I 
do not mean to affirm that wars may not sometimes be 
necessary and justifiable. But to make them so, the 
benefits to be gained for man must overbalance the evils, 
which inevitaby follow in the train of war ; and those 
evils are of such a magnitude, that they can scarcely be 
overestimated. A distinguished philanthropist, recently 
deceased, has said — "The greatest curse that can be 
entailed upon mankind is a state of war. All the 
atrocious crimes committed in years of peace — all that 
is spent in peace by the secret corruptions, or by the 
thoughtless extravagance of nations, are mere trifles, 



24 



compared with the gigantic evils which stalk over 
the world, in a state of war. God is forgotten in 
war — every principle of Christian charity trampled 
upon, — human labor destroyed, — human industry 
extinguished ; — you see the son and the husband and 
the brother dying miserably in distant lands ; — you 
see the waste of human affections ; - — you see the 
breaking of human hearts ) — you hear the shrieks of 
widows and children after the battle ; and you walk 
over the mangled bodies of the wounded, calling for 
death/' Nothing can be added to this frightful group 
of horrors, which the hand of truth has here sketched 
as with a pencil of light ; and surely nothing more is 
needed to make us put forth our every exertion, to 
hasten the auspicious hour when, in the progress of 
the just principles of human government, the nations 
shall learn war no more. 

These are some of the evils which apply to man in 
his social state and in his national capacity ; the removal 
of which can only be effected by an enlightened public 
opinion. And who, as a class, are to form and direct 
public opinion in America, if it be not the liberally 
educated class? If all the graduates of all the 
institutions of learning, for the next twenty years, should 
be found contributing their influence to a judicious and 
salutary reform, and to the elevation of the masses, in 
intelligence, virtue, and happiness, what a glorious 
triumph of philanthropy should we not witness ? — These, 
however, are not the only ways in which an educated 
man can discharge his, duty and fulfill his mission of 



25 



benevolence to his kind. Wherever human frailty, 
ignorance, vice, crime, and suffering exist, there is a 
field for action in the various ways which Providence 
may open to him, who is urged by a generous 
enthusiasm to occupy it. 

If he is called to legislate in the councils of the 
State or Nation, let him see to it, that he makes the 
principle of " the greatest happiness of the greatest 
number," in a high and enlightened sense, not that 
of the demagogue, his cardinal principle of action. 
Let him vigorously oppose all unjust and partisan 
legislation, addressed to a particular section or class, 
to secure their votes for his party. Let him give a 
hearty assent to every measure for the just advancement 
of popular rights ; — but let him have the firmness to 
resist the demagogue's appeal for that largest liberty, 
which consists in an exemption alike from the obligation 
of contracts, and the restraints of law ; and which gives 
a license to the idle and the fraudulent, to prey upon the 
earnings of the industrious and provident. 

If he is called to aid in the administration of the 
law, as a counselor, let him never forget, that the 
attainment of justice is the end and aim of his noble 
profession ; and let him never seek to sacrifice 
substantial right to the technicalities and chicanery 
of form ; and while he insists, as he should do, that 
justice should be administered according to law, let him 
never descend to mere tricks and contrivances, which 
sometimes make the very forms of law the instruments 
of working injustice and oppression. 



26 



If it should be his fortune to minister in the sacred 
desk, and I were permitted to suggest a word of advice, it 
would be, to exhort him to eschew a spirit of controversy, 
and to bear it constantly in mind, that his, is, in a peculiar 
sense, a mission of charity and love ; and that his vocation 
is, to succor the needy, to visit the poor, to comfort the 
afflicted, and to pour oil and wine into the wounds of the 
broken and contrite heart. And above all, let him be 
imbued with a deep sense of the high character of the 
profession which he has chosen. The subjects of his 
communications to his people embrace the most sublime 
and momentous considerations, that can be addressed to 
the human heart. And if his spirit can not kindle and 
glow in the contemplation of such mighty themes — if 
he can not rise above the dull formalities of a cold, 
commonplace morality, as his mind yields to a just view 
of the immense value of those immortal interests, of 
which he has assumed the charge ; and as his vision 
opens upon that world of sublime and thrilling objects of 
thought, which the teacher of religion must be accustomed 
to contemplate ; then, indeed, is he wanting, either in a 
fervid devotion to the cause of his Master, or in sympathy 
for his erring brother, for whose restoration to virtue and 
happiness, he was sent to labor. 

And here it was a part of my plan to have enlarged 
somewhat in detail upon the excesses and abuses of this 
enthusiasm, of which I have been treating ; but the 
limits of this address will not allow me to do so. I 
will only say, that the enthusiasm which I have ventured 
to recommend, is not a blind and inconsiderate impulse, 



27 



but a disciplined and enlightened energy of purpose, 
which pursues, with resolute determination, the path of 
knowledge and virtue, while the light of truth shines upon 
its footsteps. It is subordinate to, and controlled by, a 
sound discretion ; and is equally opposed to that reckless 
devotion to intellectual improvement, which has sent so 
many lamented sons of genius to an early grave ; and 
to that inconsiderate rasliness, which has characterized 
the measures of many of the friends of a virtuous 
reform, and has entailed upon their well-meant efforts, 
the most disastrous consequences. 

But, while I would caution you to avoid the dangers 
of impetuous and undisciplined impulse in the pursuit of 
any object — however meritorious ; I would earnestly 
exhort you to engage, with a generous enthusiasm and a 
resolute purpose, in the great cause of human progress 
and advancement. 

You will remember, that no great and enduring good 
has ever been achieved, without this ardent devotion of 
the mind to the accomplishment of its object. Without 
this, the great Luther would have laid his shaven crown 
in the grave, without striking a single blow for truth, or 
sounding that trumpet peal, which rang terror and alarm 
through all the departments of ecclesiastical corruption. 
Without this, Columbus would have passed away, in the 
odor of sanctity ; and this great continent would have 
slept in the silence of undiscovered obscurity, and no 
sound been heard across the vast extent of forest and 
prairie, but the scream of the panther or the yell of the 
savage. Without this, all the arts that adorn and 



28 



humanize life, would have slumbered in the lap of 
primeval barbarism ; and those forms of beauty which 
have illustrated the classic ages of Greece and Rome, 
would have still lain dormant in the yet unquarried 
marble. Without this, Socrates, nature's great theologian, 
would have knelt in the sincerity of superstitious 
reverence, before the shrine of his country's idols, and 
never "looked up through nature's works, to nature's 
God." Without this, Paul would have continued his 
lessons at the feet of Gamaliel, instead of proclaiming the 
Unknown God, in those solemn temples and marble 
halls, which were still vocal with the echoes of Grecian 
eloquence. And in one word, without this, the human 
mind, sunk in ignorance and debased by superstition, 
would never have abjured its connection with the clod 
of the valley, nor risen in the dignity of its immortal 
attributes, to claim its parentage of the Father of Spirits. 

You will remember, too, that the period during which 
any individual can render efficient service in the cause of 
man, is necessarily brief; — the longest life is inadequate 
to the development and consummation of any plan which 
is to tell upon the ultimate character and permanent 
prospects of the race. It is only by a succession of 
happy influences, operating by the instrumentality of 
successive agencies, upon successive generations of men, 
that the human race can be rescued from the manifold 
evils which ignorance and crime have entailed upon it. 

No, my young Friends, our lives are too ephemeral in 
duration to witness the end and accomplishment of any 
extended plan of human reform. We have all joined 



29 



the great procession, which is marching onward, as 
rapidly as the flight of time, to the land of shadows. 
Well and truly has the Poet said — 

" Art is long, but life is fleeting, 

And our hearts, though stout and brave, 
Still, like muffled drums, are beating 
Funeral marches, to the grave." 

In the light, then, of this solemn truth, let me exhort you, 
in the language of the Inspired Volume, "Whatsoever thy 
hand findeth to do," in the great cause of humanity, 
"do it with thy might," — do it with an unfaltering zeal, 
and an energy of purpose, which shall brook neither 
delay nor obstacle, " for there is no work, nor device, 
nor wisdom, nor knowledge, in the grave, whither 
thou goest." 



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